Well, sorry to tell you, but I wasn't planning on raising much at all unless I lost my army. You would've done much better doing that in France. The most I even planned to recruit was those 4 arty units. That's it, I don't have the economy to support massive recruitment.
That's what was going in your head, which we couldn't have known. On our part, we had to act with consideration for the possibility that you would try to raise armies, with or without being stackwiped. If French part of army was stackwiped as planned, we'd control their land with the detachment sent there and continuous mercenary reinforcements. Instead, our forces that were meant to pacify attempts of raising new army were forced to chase the French.
If we had rushed all of our army north, it would leave entire south free to rebuild armies. Plus considering the attachment failure, we still had lost days of chase.
Well, you actually did have lucky rolls prior to the end of the battle in Rome. Consider that we frequently suffered more casualties than you on a shock phase while I had a whopping 5-shock general when the Ottomans had a 1-shock leading your side, and at most we were fighting on a river crossing. Only at the last moment did our roll turn an about-face. Otherwise, the shock rolls were really poor as we usually lost more men than you or lost just a little bit less. You were not lucky on getting absolutely crushing rolls, you were lucky on my side not getting crushing rolls, where I'd imagine a 4-point difference would mean a large advantage.
Though checking in the save file, you did lose more men than we did, but only by less than 3K. I assume it's mostly as a result of the massive losses at the very end of the battle, not as a result of the majority of the battle, where I distinctly remember your side frequently rolling high while my side rolled low.
Tarran, I think you are either confused or just making up stuff here. The only battle where we had good rolls was the first battle where you guys have rushed us in
the mountains, which is huge penalty in itself - we had over 30k advantage on top of that. Do not attribute that victory to our superior rolls, you just went against all the odds and lost.
There were only three others battles and the last one in Rome, where we have lost horribly due unremarkable rolls and slight disadvantage of numbers, was the only time where Ottomans' general has led, over a river too. You didn't get crushing rolls, we didn't get good rolls. I do not see where your claims about our luck comes from.
In addition, prior to that in Toulouse we lost 5K more on another battlefield with that same 5-shock general, versus a 2-shock general.
Either generals are far, far less useful than in EU3, which I'm in the dark about if it's the case, or my side rarely got good rolls. If I'm just not knowing of how strong generals are anymore, please inform me because frankly I am still under the EU3 the assumption that generals can affect the tide of battle drastically.
Not sure if you remember, but in Toulouse we had more discipline for some reason as well as superior numbers. Generals do change the fight drastically and are the reason why you haven't terribly lost all of those encounters. But they aren't magical loss-less I-win button, either. It's enough that they win battles that should have been lost.
Only the french were really making new regiments in large amounts. And I don't believe I ever suggested a stalemate, I suggested caution and staying together.
You suggested retreating into the defensive, which was the stalemate we have suffered prior the session. And again, we could not know that you were unwilling to raise armies. Odds are you would have if we had wiped France and left you alone.
It's only natural we all have different point of view.
No screenshots D:?
Sorry, Dutchling, the two previous session I have played on weak, substitute graphic-card - my game was so choppy and slow I had to focus on only most important things and had no thought to spare for screenshots except for one instance =\
Hell, it was so bad, I missed Andrew saying he starts the war!
I will see if I can cook up some maps and time to describe them sometime this week.